


gone.

by izzyasavestheday (stilessexual)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 12:10:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3936259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilessexual/pseuds/izzyasavestheday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abby sees Clarke and Bellamy for what they truly are: forces of nature.</p>
            </blockquote>





	gone.

**Author's Note:**

> (this has been sitting in my drafts forever. unbeta'd and makes me super sad) (i'm not even in this fandom omg)

Kane never came back.

Abby made the painful decision not to go after him, or the children. And it _was_ painful. Kane wasn’t just anyone. Kane lived in her bones. He filled a place that had been empty for years. But they couldn’t. Not yet, not when there were so many unknown variables. They didn’t have the manpower. They didn’t have the resources. They didn’t have the damn strength to go into a place like the Mountain and come out alive.

Her daughter, her child, stared her down with dead eyes. Bellamy Blake stood at her back, jaw clenched and arms crossed tightly across his chest. 

“Is that,” Clarke’s tone was one Abby had never heard before. “Is that your final decision, Chancellor?”

Abby flinched. “Clark, I’m sor—

Clarke raised a hand and Abby was shocked to her very core when it silenced her.

 “You’ve made your decision,” She was there, Clarke was only a few feet away but Abby had never felt so far from her own child. “and we’ve made ours.”

Abby couldn’t help the way her own voice cracked, “and what’s yours?”

“To stand with our people,” Clarke spat furiously, “no matter what. No matter the cost.”

“Clarke, you don’t have—

“What?” Clarke snapped. “The man power? The resources? Is that what you’re thinking of, mom? Do you think any of this will matter if they die? Will you be able to live with yourself?”

Bellamy gently tugged the back Clarke’s shirt. He whispered something in her ear. Clarke’s shoulders relaxed minutely.

“Clarke, please.” Abby begged. “Please. This is a suicide mission.”

They stared at her.

Abby raised her chin in defiance. “I won’t allow it.”

They grinned. These barely adults with their scarred bodies and minds, grinned at her wilder than the grounders. More savage than anything this hellhole they now called home could spit out. Bellamy spoke this time:

“We’ll die before we abandon them.”

Abby longed for space.

~

They came back. By some miracle they came back.

Abby saw Bellamy first –the lock of his jaw, a child clinging to his back. The other children trudged behind him, bloodied and torn and laughing and so very alive. There were grounders amongst them but they all walked together as one. They had weapons and clothing and things that were not their own on their backs and in their hands. Abby’s heart lodged itself somewhere in her throat, and she prayed to her gods and the grounders’ gods and every deity in existence that her daughter, her child, her baby was somewhere—

“Bellamy,” Clarke’s voice that was Clarke. She stepped out of the group, and pushed the child’s hair off of her face. “Get her to the med bay. Everyone else who needs patching up, get it there too.”

He grinned at her, lazy and private. Happy. Bellamy Blake looked happy.

Clarke had another gash across her forehead. She was grimy but laughing. She kept reaching out to touch the kids around her with wide, happy eyes.

“They came back,” one of the mothers screamed. “The children are back!”

—and then there was the chaos of family members trying to find one another, crying and laughing and Abby lost sight of her child. Again.

~

Abby found her in the med bay. Clarke was bandaging and stitching wounds, resetting bones, and pressing her forehead to others. She was smiling and crying and scolding. They looked at her, those lost children, with awe and love. Abby felt something inside her slide off and crumble. 

Abby’s body understood the loss long before her mind caught up.

“She’ll do this until she collapses from exhaustion,” Abby spun around and found Bellamy in the shadows.

“Has she done this before?”

Bellamy snorted. “You all have no damn clue.”

“Then tell me,” Abby  begged. She’s been doing a lot of begging lately. To the gods. To these children. “Please help me understand.”

Bellamy pulled her into the shadows. “What is it that you need to understand, Chancellor?”

Abby’s voice sounded like sandpaper. “How?” 

Bellamy looked at her, and Abby could almost see the play of memories in his mind’s eye. When he answered, his voice was as raw and as tired as hers. “Your daughter’s been through so much more than you’ll ever understand. She’s done so much more than she can bear. They look at her like the sun shines out of her ass because it does. She’s solely responsible for our survival. Time and fucking time again.”

There was something lodged in Abby’s throat, and no matter how much she swallowed she couldn’t seem to push it down. “What has my daughter done?” she finally whispered. “What has this place turned her into?”

Bellamy looked at her like he pitied her. Maybe he did. “Whatever she needed to do, whatever she needed to be.”

“She’s just a child—

Bellamy spun her around; somewhere in the back of her mind she was stunned at his gentleness. “Look at her. Look at your daughter.”

She saw. Abby saw her daughter for the first time in a very long time.

“Bellamy,” Clarke called, barely glancing back, barely raising her voice. Like she already knew he was there, like she already knew that he was never too far from her. “Could you give me a hand?”

He exhaled something resembling a laugh, something fond and almost brittle. “The princess beckons, excuse me.”

He walked towards her. Abby watched, in awe, as they gravitated towards each other. Clarke was muttering and pressing her hands to Bellamy’s face, his arms and chest, clinically and quickly checking for injuries. And, god, Bellamy Blake the man once dubbed an assassin was looking at her child with the gentlest, most vulnerable expression she had ever seen on a man’s face. He stilled her hands on his face. He whispered something that had her crumbling into his arms. They hugged each other so tightly; Abby thought it’d break them. She wondered if they were the only thing keeping the other from succumbing to madness.  

“We call it: the strength in our backs,”

It was one of the grounder women. She had scars and tattoos covering her face and the brightest green eyes Abby had ever seen.

“Excuse me?”

She shoved her chin towards Clarke and Bellamy, “they are the strength in each other’s backs. They are the reason the other doesn’t fail under the weight of the entire clan on their shoulders. I think you call this concept love.”

Abby wanted to crumble like her daughter but she had no one to catch her this time, “they’re just children.”

The woman stared at her, “They brought the Mountain Men to their knees. They will live with the horrors of what they have done and had done to them forever.”

Abby and the woman looked at them. Clarke was reluctantly letting Octavia clean her wounds. Bellamy stood at her back. Bellamy always stood at her back.

“This land forges warriors of us all,” the woman hummed. “There was no need for that with them. They were warriors from the start.”

~

“Mom, you don’t understand.”

Over the course of the last few days, Abby had heard this phrase ring out in the camp more than once. She wished it was the typical whining of teenagers, she found that it was anything but that. There was an unease in the camp. There was a tension that threatened to snap and take everything they’ve built with it. 

It all came to the day the Captain struck one of the children; the day she struck one of the remaining 100.

“No, no, no, no.” Abby rushed to the commotion, to the yelling, to the echo of Bellamy’s roar. When she finally pushed through the ring of people –of parents, the children have pushed themselves forward, they are standing behind their leaders– she knew it was over. Abby felt it in her bones. It was over. It was over. It was over.

Bellamy held the Captain by the neck; her feet were barely brushing the ground. Clarke was plastered to his front, protecting him, gun aimed at the members of the guard. The rest of the children were standing behind Bellamy and Clarke –children of the Ark and grounders alike –makeshift weapons in hand, their teeth flashing wildly.  

Clarke saw her, and spoke through a tight jaw. “She put her hands on one of ours.”

“Clarke,” Abby breathed deep. “Yours? Clarke, there is no ours and yours. We’re one people.”

Clarke looked up at Bellamy, they exchanged words silently. They understood each other completely. He dropped the struggling Captain to the ground, and turned to speak to his people, trusting Clarke to guard his back from any attacks. From Abby. From _them_.

It was over.

“They sent us you down here to die.” He called out to the children. “Just a group of kids. You were meant to one day be floated on the Ark, and you were meant to die here. Either way, you all were expendable. Either way, you were a last resort.”

They looked at him with wide, lost eyes.

Children, Abby thought desperately. They sent children to die. They’ll burn in the pits of hell for it. 

“But you aren’t expendable!” He bellowed. “Don’t you see? They tell us to stop acting like animals but we did what we had to, to survive.”

He grinned at them, wild and beautiful.

“And survive we did. How many wars have we fought together? How many nights have we slept peacefully knowing our brothers and sisters were guarding our backs? How many times have we willfully walked into hell because someone we loved was on the other side of it?”

“Bellamy,” a girl cried. She couldn’t be more than 14. Abby distantly wondered what she could’ve done to land her in the Sky Box. What could a child done that is so awful that they deserved to be imprisoned for it. “We’ve lost so much. So many have died.”

“Aubrey,” he whispered the girl’s name like a prayer. She smiled up at him tearful and young. “I know. We hear you. All of you. How you mourn your friends and people that might as well been your own flesh and blood. We hear you mourning your lovers. They are exactly why we must continue fighting.” He slammed his fist against his chest, voice raised over the entire camp. “They live through us! Every day we live, every day we fight, they live through us!”

The children cried and yelled and mourned and—

Clarke was stepping forward. Bellamy stood at her back. Everyone hushed.

Clarke’s hair shown like a halo around her. The silence was sacred.

“I know you’re scared,” they knew something. Clarke knew something. Abby couldn’t keep up. Somewhere along the line, they’d decided something and everyone else was struggling to understand. “I know you’re thinking of the nights we spent cold and hungry. I know you’re thinking of the nights we thought we needed adults or outside help and we didn’t get it. I know you dream of the flames. I know you dream of being hung upside down. I know you dream of your friends, of safety and warmth.”

There were tears everywhere. On Abby’s face.

“I know,” Clarke went on “because I dream of this too. But I also dream of a future so bright, it makes my heart hurt. I dream of the ocean. I dream of us thriving and rebuilding an entire civilization together. I dream of us living for everyone who isn’t here anymore.”

Clarke didn’t bother to wipe the tears on her face; she let them drop to her shirt.

“We can’t do that here,” her voice cracked. “I know it feels safe, and we feel like we finally don’t have to worry about dying but you all know that’s not true. I know you all feel it. This place will not survive, and I refuse for us to be here when it fails. We’ve gone through too much, seen too much, we’ve fought too damn hard to fail now.”

Abby wanted to curl up on herself. She wanted to disappear.

“To the grounders amongst us,” Clarke called out, “to the indigenous settlers, to the people whose lives we destroyed—

The woman with the green eyes stepped forward. Clarke smiled up at her, like Bellamy, she looked wild and devastating and so far away.

“I will,” she started, “we will spend the rest of our lives making it up to you, undoing every wrong we can, and learning from you how to be kinder to the land and everyone on it. You are welcome to stay with us, and if you choose not to we will fulfill our promise of doing everything we can to reunite you with your clans.”

The woman was smiling, it looked like infinity.

Abby thought that it might be a dream. That’s the only way she can explain her baby girl taking a blade out of her shoe and slicing her palm on it. She handed the blade back to the woman who did the same.

Clarke spoke loud and clear, for the entirety of Earth to hear. “Gabriella, I swear to you we will always fight alongside you. We will always be the strength at your back. You can always depend on having a safe home with the Sky people.”

The woman grinned wild and clasped Clarke’s bloodied hand with her own, “I’ll remember your words, Clarke. I’ll remember your bravery. I’ll remember to tell my clan and spread the word to every clan in the land of how you and your warrior-love destroyed the Mountain Men unarmed and alone. You are my sister –that was forged through blood and steel. This is a bond that will outlive eternity.”

They collapsed into each other’s arms, crying and laughing and hugging desperately –bloodying each other. Two sister-warriors crying for everything they’ve lost, crying for everything they’ve gained.

“You’re talking about leaving,” one of the mothers called out, finally finally catching on. “You can’t leave!”

Gabriella reluctantly loosened her hold on Clarke and stepped back. Clarke swiped a hand underneath her eyes and turned to the adults. She had blood on her face. “We can. We will.”

Before the woman could speak again, before chaos could break out, Clarke raised a hand for silence. It was controlled. Abby remembered baby Clarke waddling towards her father on unsteady feet. She remembered Clarke losing her first tooth. She remembered Clarke drawing for the first time.

Abby remembered when she sent her only child to the ground to die.  

“You’re welcome to come with us.” She smiled, cleared eyed with the force of her conviction. “Just like any of the remaining one hundred are welcome to stay. We won’t ever force anyone.”

She smiled up at Bellamy. He smiled down at her and pressed a kiss to her bloodied temple.

And

And that was it. That was all it took.

~

They left. They left. They left. Clarke left.

~

They barely lasted two winters. Barely. Barely.

Too many died. Some from the cold, some from the heat. Some from the grounders who only wanted peace with Clarke and her people. They were a hard two years. At snow’s first melt, they packed their meager belongings and their pride and followed the children to the sea.

She looked the same, but different. Clarke’s hair was shorn short. The hot sun and the salt water had done a number on her skin; they left her weathered and beautiful. But that wasn’t what stopped Abby in her tracks. It was her child barking out orders; hand on the small of her back to support her pregnant belly.

Clarke waddled towards her on steady feet.

“Mom,” she grinned. There were no ghosts in her eyes. “I’m glad you all made it through the trip here.”

Abby’s throat worked harshly. “Clarke. You’re—

She laughed. Light and young and alive. “I am.”

Abby didn’t have time for surprise.

“Mrs. Griffin.” She turned and found Bellamy frowning at her. He, like Clarke, was the same but so different. His skin was a beautiful brown, hair too long, and so much lighter. He no longer looked hunted. Like Clarke, it wasn’t the brightness of his eyes that stopped Abby in her tracks. It was the child strapped across his chest.

“Oh,” Abby exhaled. “Oh, my god.”

“Mrs. Griffin,” Bellamy repeated. “This is Wells.”

He carefully maneuvered the sleeping child out of the sling and gave him to her. Wells had his father’s soft curls, and freckled tanned skin. He blinked awake, and Abby knew she was crying as her daughter’s own blue eyes stared back at her.

“Oh, my god.” Abby repeated, crying. He was perfect. This was perfect. It was everything they’d dream of.

Clarke pressed a hand to her back, and rubbed gentle circles into it. 

“Welcome home, mom.”


End file.
